Thanks, Gordon, for forwarding that. It's an interesting read.
Duetting is actually quite common in other parts of the world,
especially tropical areas. Africa, Central and South America,
Australia, and other places have lots of species that duet.
Plain-tailed Wrens, which this study focused on, are masters of it.
Something this article didn't mention is that this species sometimes
lives in large cooperative groups, and those groups sing in chorus.
Multiple males singing the male part together, and multiple females
singing the female part together.
Some great examples of this are here: http://www.xeno-canto.org/37014
and here: http://www.xeno-canto.org/184
Compared to the rest of the world, duet singing is unusually uncommon in
the US and Canada. The only species here that comes to mind is Northern
Cardinal, though I suspect there are others.
Matt Dufort
Minneapolis
On 11/8/11 9:50 PM, G Andersson wrote:
This article reports research on the duet singing of this wren species from
Ecuador. Given its name, could this be the only wren species without a
barred tail? Anyway there are links in the text to listen to the duet and
the single song.. also a link to the original journal article for those who
like neurology. I don't think there are any duetting bird species in N
America, but there are in Africa. I would guess their finding apply to all
such species worldwide, but who knows?
Gordon Andersson
St Paul
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/11/wrens-brains-are-wired-for-due
ts.html?ref=hp
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